


Lucky Stars

by Harley Writes Fanfic (Needle_Bones)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: I tried to write Spacedogs, M/M, Spacedogs, hannigram AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Harley%20Writes%20Fanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a fluffy, kind of Christmas-y Spacedogs thing. Nigel has a new tattoo that means a lot to Adam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Stars

Adam was waiting for a meteor shower.

It was maybe one in the morning by then and the city sprawling out around him was about as quiet as it ever got. Things felt calmer and crisper this time of year and he found that it usually worked wonders for his frayed nerves to come up to the roof and just watch the sky for a while when the temperature started to drop.

And it was. In fact, the nights were getting colder and colder as fall steadily gave way to winter, and that meant that he'd probably have to spend the next several hours shivering, even once he was back inside. He'd piled a few blankets in a makeshift nest on the roof to ward off the ache that always came from being out too long this time of the year, but they didn't do much against the wind.

At the moment he was buried up in those blankets with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, staring up at the blackness overhead, which was really a mix of all kind of shades – blues and grays and purples – and lit with a small collection of stars. It might be harder to see things with the light pollution from the city but it was getting too late in the year to wander too far from home for celestial events so he'd have to make do.

He still had five minutes and twenty-five seconds until the projected start time, but he'd learned over the years that the times given on websites were usually indications at best, so it was better to show up a little early. Besides the city was considerably calmer at night so he didn't mind the wait as much as he might have had it been broad daylight, full of noise and stress.

Far below him, a man in ripped jeans and a once-white shirt had one scarred hand pressed hard to his bleeding side as he limped down the sidewalk. He stopped in the dark space between two streetlights, catching his breath with shallow gasps and casting long glances at the surrounding buildings. A metal fire escape with the ladder down was bolted to the side of one of them and after a few painful tries, he managed to pull himself up off of the cracked asphalt.

Nigel was pretty sure he'd lost that pack of idiots, but it still wasn't safe to stay on the streets for the next couple of hours, just in case. God forbid one of them finally remembered they actually had a brain hiding in that mass of bone above their shoulders. There were times he was nothing but grateful to have stupid friends.

The roof of the building was slanted but not so much that he couldn't stand on it if he was careful where he put his feet. There was a flatter spot near the back and he picked his way over the shingles toward it, mostly just looking for a place to sit down and rest for a minute. At least he was bleeding from a knife wound and not from a hole blown in him by some freak's semi-automatic. That was a nice change of pace.

The gasp was so soft that he barely heard it.

Nigel looked up and caught sight of a man in what looked to be pajamas standing up from a pile of blankets he'd apparently drug up to the rooftop for some damn reason. He'd thought it was a kid at first glance but no, Nigel realized, looking closer. The guy was maybe in his twenties, which only made the whole thing stranger.

He was small-built, with wide eyes looking out from under a mop of dark hair. His hands worked together over the fabric of a dark blue blanket with these quick, nervous movements and he looked at Nigel like most people would look a wild dog that had wondered too close to a playground.

It took Nigel a minute to process why he was staring at him like that, but then he remembered the ripped clothes, the dark bruise slowly forming around his right eye, and the blood that was slowly running over his fingers.

“Hey,” he said, holding out the hand not clamped against his side and trying to keep his voice as gentle as he could. “It's okay. I mean, I'm not... I'm not gonna eat you or anything.”

The kid just stared back at him for a moment, running the hem of a blanket between his fingers. “How did you get up here?” he asked.

Nigel shrugged with one shoulder, wincing when the wound in his side caught and pulled. “Climbed up the fucking fire escape – how did you think I got up here?”

“The fire escape should be locked unless there's a fire.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn't.”

The kid shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You're not supposed to be up here,” he said. “I don't know who you are and I didn't invite you so you're not supposed to be here.”

Nigel sat down heavily with his back against the door leading to the roof. “What's your name?”

“Adam.”

Normally, Nigel would have busted his jaw by now, but for some reason he didn't want to hurt this kid. Maybe it was just because he seemed so young or maybe it was because he looked a little unsteady anyway standing out there all alone with just a collection of blankets, but whatever the reason, punching his lights out didn't feel like the thing to do.

“I'm Nigel,” he said. “And I'm going to fucking sit here for a minute or two and get my breath back. Then I'll get the fuck out of your sight if you want me to, nice and simple.”

“I should call someone,” Adam said, shifting like he wanted to go get the phone but he wasn’t sure about having to walk past Nigel to do it. “You're supposed to call someone if you're hurt.”

_Sparrow_ , Nigel thought.  _Kid looks like a sparrow, fucking flitting around like that_. Out loud, he said, “No need. Trust me. I've been though a hell of a lot worse than this and recovered just fucking fine on my own.”

Adam looked like he wanted to say something but he stopped before he made a sound, instead looking at the space over Nigel's head, his eyes going a little wider.

Nigel whipped around, tensing as much as his wounds would allow. There was no way those same idiots had tracked him down all the way out here, but Nigel had no shortage of enemies and there were very few of them who wouldn't have thought it was wonderful luck to find him injured on a rooftop in the middle of the night.

But there was no one crouching behind him with a gun leveled between his eyes. In fact, Adam was staring much higher, looking up at the sky. Bright streaks cut across the blackness, just a few at first, then more and more until it felt like the night was shredding apart around him.

“Shooting stars,” Nigel said, falling back against the brick.

“They're not stars, actually. They're meteoroids burning as they fall through the atmosphere and become meteors. All we're seeing is the visible trail they leave.” Adam made a small noise, like he was going to keep talking, but he stopped short. He probably thought Nigel would snap on him for correcting him because he only relaxed when Nigel didn't move beyond shifting a little to relieve the pressure on his wound, which had thankfully stopped dripping blood by that point.

Nigel thought about telling him that he didn't mind hearing him ramble about meteoroids or whatever, that it was a pleasant change from the conversations he usually had, but he wasn't sure how that would be received and he didn't really feel like explaining himself, so instead he opted for silence.

The shower went on for a while after that and eventually Adam sat down in his nest of blankets, pulling one adorned with small rocket ships around his shoulders to ward off the chill. He'd apparently decided that if Nigel was someone who wanted to hurt him, he would have by now.

Nigel watched the light show overhead for a few more seconds before refocusing on Adam, staring up at the falling points with such a look of pure wonder that it caught Nigel completely off guard. Living like he did, it was easy to forget what happiness and honesty and comfort looked like.

So Adam sat there and watched the sky falling around them like it was the most beautiful thing in the universe.

And Nigel sat there looking at Adam in exactly the same way.

\-------

It was nearly Christmas Day – two hours and thirty-nine minutes left, to be exact – and Adam was staring at Nigel, dozing on the couch in the living room.

It had been a difficult few months for them both. Some of Nigel's coworkers had recently decided that winter was the time to start stranding people they didn't like outdoors and sinking bodies into frozen-over lakes and Nigel had gotten mixed up in quite a few fights as a result.

“Nigel,” Adam said, and waited for the man to stir and crack one eye open like he usually did.

“What is is, angel?” Nigel's voice was soft and heavy, half-asleep in the warmth and relative safety of Adam's house.

“Did you hurt someone again?”

Nigel paused and then sat up, fully awake now. “No,” he said. “Not since my last job. I've been laying low as a fucking dog since then - you know that.”

That last 'job' had been nearly two weeks back and Adam certainly hadn't noticed Nigel acting any differently since. Still...

Adam reached out, hooking two fingers in the collar of Nigel's shirt. “You got hurt again,” he said, tugging the fabric to expose a few inches of the man's skin.

The left side of Nigel's chest was covered with deep hues of blue and purple. At first Adam thought it was just evidence of yet another fight, the nature of which he was intending to drag out of Nigel, but when he set his fingers against it, he realized it wasn't a bruise – it was a new tattoo.

He must have looked confused because Nigel opened the top two buttons of his shirt and held the fabric away so Adam could see the full design: a large patch of night sky with no definite edge was splashed over his heart, the entire image streaked through with white. A meteor shower.

Nigel's scarred hand rested over his. “See?” he asked. “Everything's fine. Just a little new art. My lucky stars.”

“Lucky?” Adam repeated. He'd never considered Nigel to be someone who put much stock in luck but he'd been wrong about the man in the past. Some days Nigel was, at best, confusing.

“Of course, fucking lucky.” Nigel wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him forward those last few inches, so Adam was essentially sitting in his lap. He pressed a quick kiss to his lips, pulling back just a bit to grin at him. “Remember? There were falling stars the night we met. All over the fucking sky.”

Adam did remember. He'd been so afraid of Nigel that night, but since the man didn't seem intent on hurting him, he hadn't yelled for help. Sometimes he wasn't sure he made the right decision, but then Nigel said or did something that made him remember how relieved he was whenever the man returned from whatever ‘job’ he’d had to disappear on, and how worried he always was until he knew he was safe.

His life was harshly divided into Before Nigel and After Nigel. Thankfully, ‘After Nigel’ felt much more like home than ‘Before Nigel’.

“So that's why they're lucky?” he asked.

“Exactly. Because I met you, darling.”

Adam settled in against him, resting his head on his chest and splaying his fingers over the tattoo. He sometimes didn't understand why Nigel said the things he did, but he felt like he understood this. Nigel loved him. He loved him enough to make an image of the very first night they were aware of each other's existence a permanent part of his body.

“Okay?” the man asked, nuzzling into his hair.

For a few long seconds, Adam didn’t answer. He sat still and stared at the memory etched into his lover's skin, his own fingers caging it in like he could hold it in his hands as something physical and unchangeable. And maybe it really was just that constant. Even when they fought, Adam found himself unable to imagine a day when Nigel wouldn't be there to guard him.

Constant as the stars.

Adam smiled and curled into Nigel's embrace. “It's beautiful.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for whleshark on tumblr for the Hannigram Holiday Exchange~! I've never written Spacedogs before so I really hope it was okay and that you have a great holiday season <3


End file.
